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Flourless and Low-Sugar Cookies with Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Flourless and Low-Sugar Cookies with Peanut Butter and Chocolate are delicious for a chocolate treat for your Valentine!

Valentine's Day is next weekend, and I've been experimenting to create a chocolate cookie recipe that was sugar-free. After lots of tries that weren't bad but not quite what I wanted, I decided it was worth using the tiniest bit of brown sugar to take the edge off the chocolate and add crispiness. These cookies only have 2 T brown sugar plus the small amount of sugar that's in the peanut butter, so they really are low in sugar.

If your Valentine is someone who wants to avoid sugar, for the South Beach Diet or for health reasons, I guarantee these cookies will do the trick. I even tried them out on the teenage son of my contractor and he pronounced them "really good!" These would make a great Christmas cookie too, so I'm also adding them to my list of Christmas Recipes.

I rarely use Splenda Brown Sugar Blend in a recipe because I'm so annoyed with the nutritional information on the package, listed in 1/2 teaspoons for a baking product! However, if you wanted even less sugar, you could use that to replace the brown sugar. For those who are wondering, I did try Agave Nectar instead of brown sugar in one of my experiments, but the cookies burned on the bottom. If anyone tries that and gets a better result, I'd love to hear about it.

Use a hand beater to mix together the cookies for best results. I used chunky peanut butter, but you could use plain peanut butter for a more elegant cookie. This dough is pretty stiff after you add the peanut butter, so you may need to scrape it off the beaters.

I scooped out dough with a small spoon, about 2 tsp. of dough per cookie, and rolled it into a ball. I was using my toaster oven, so I baked 12 cookies at a time for a total of 24 small cookies.

I used a fork to press down the cookies, necessary because they don't spread out much. I baked these cookies on parchment, but if you don't have any I don't think it's completely necessary.

Flourless and (almost) Sugar Free Cookies with Peanut Butter and Chocolate
(Makes 24 small cookies, recipe created by Kalyn)

In plastic bowl, add eggs, Splenda or Stevia, Brown Sugar (or substitute described above), cocoa powder, baking powder, and vanilla. Use hand beater or stand mixer to beat together about 30 seconds. Add almond meal and beat 15-20 seconds. Add peanut butter and beat until well mixed., about 20 more seconds. Dough will be stiff, so scrape it off the beaters if needed.

Use a small spoon to measure out about 2 tsp. of dough and roll each cookie into a ball, then arrange cookies in rows on baking sheet. Leave enough room to smash down cookies with a fork when the baking sheet is full. Smash cookies to about 1/2 inch thick, then bake for 15-17 minutes, or until top feels firm and cookies look done. Let cool a few minutes before eating.

Cookies like this with very minimal sugar are something I would make occasionally as a South Beach Diet friendly dessert. Everything used here is a low-glycemic ingredient, but the cookies are relatively high in fat, so this is probably a "once in a while treat" for the South Beach Diet, and the use of almond meal would make this limited to Phase 2 or 3.

Nutritional Information?
I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.)

More Cookies with Chocolate or Peanut Butter
(Recipes from other blogs may not always be South Beach Diet friendly; check ingredients.)

(Want even more recipes? I find these recipes from other blogs using Food Blog Search.)

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This sounds really good Kalyn! I think I remember hearing something bad about Mexican vanilla recently though... something about being contaminated? I don't remember exactly - but just giving you a heads up.

These look very interesting - and delicious - I am always on the lookout for gluten free cookies for my celiac niece! unfortunately my valentine loves cookies full of fat and sugar but would be interested to see what he thought of these :-)

I've been making the PB cookies that have just 1 C PB, 1 C. Slenda and an egg. They are excellent but I'm ready for a little bit of a change. I'm so glad to have this recipe! I'll be making this one for sure. :-)

I'm glad people like the sound of these. I think even people who eat sugar would like them; at least my contractor and his teenage son gave them two thumbs up! Maggie, haven't heard that, and the bottle of Mexican Vanilla I have is half gone, and doesn't seem to be hurting me. But of course regular vanilla would be fine.

The amount of sugar in these is so small I wouldn't worry about it. I'm going to give these a try - I really watch my sugar intake but I do like something sweet once in a while. These look so good. I wonder if these cookies would freeze well and I could just take out a few at a time!

How I want to taste those cookies! But, I am spending 3 weeks in a residence hotel in CO and don't want to buy all the ingredients. I will certainly try it when I return to OK. Thanks for the recipe. I love chocolate and my husband loves peanut butter so it will make for a happy marriage.

Anonymous, that sounds like the same almond meal I buy, it is expensive, but most recipes don't use that much of it. For example, you only use 1/2 cup in these cookies, so one bag makes quite a few batches of cookies. I watch for it to go on sale and buy a few bags. Keep it in the freezer so it will stay good.

BTW, you can grind up almonds in the food processor to make your own if you're not sure you want to buy a bag. It might be a big chunkier than the commercial almond meal, but it will work.

Anonymous, this recipe is exactly how I made the cookies so it should be fine for you. I'm not sure high altitude adjustments are even need for this type of baking, but I'm definitely not a baking expert.

I made and enjoyed the Flour less Chocolate peanut butter cookies. They are easy to make. I made them in my toaster oven. They are definitely a keeper. Thank you Kalyn for giving us so many great recipes for South Beach. You are awesome!!!!!!!!!

As for the high altitude question someone else brought up--it doesn't usually affect cookies. Cakes and other baked goods are more affected by altitude. If in doubt, just raise the oven temp about 25 degrees and bake cookies for less time. The real problem is that they might turn out drier because of sugar, but that probably wouldn't happen with this recipe anyway since they are low sugar cookies.

I'm not going to publish comments for or against the use of Splenda, other than to say that I feel strongly that everyone should be allowed to make their own food choices. Obviously, I feel it's safe, especially for someone like myself who doesn't make cookies more than a few times a year, or I wouldn't use it. If you feel otherwise, then obviously you should make the cookies with sugar or whatever your own preferred sweetener is.

I've been on South Beach for almost 4 months now. I tried some dessert recipes with no flour/sugar and they did not turn out well (except mint meringue cookies). I found your website today. Thanks for the great recipes. I'm intrigued by this recipe and I'll definitely try. Do you think we could replace almond meal with grounf flaxseed? I made apple crisp with ground flaxseed (instead of flour)and it turned out yummy!

Ebru, I'm not sure about replacing all the almond meal with flaxseed. I think the flaxseed would have a much stronger flavor. You could certainly use partly flaxseed though. I may be wrong though, let me know if you try it.

Oh my these look delicious - I am in full agreement on the Splenda Brown sugar. I think the nutritional difference is much too small to make up for the price difference or the taste. Have you tried PB2? I have some in my cupboard and I'm thinking if I mix it up first so the consistency is similar to peanut butter, it would work beautifully in these cookies. It would be a big reduction in fat, and my experience with it in cooking is that the taste difference is minimal.

I just started on South Beach again and am doing great so far. Day 3. But I was kind of craving some sort of dessert. I love this web site. But I really don't like using Splenda. I do like the Agave Nectar though and I'd like to try it out. Do you know how much Agave I'd put in these cookies? Is it the same amount as the Splenda or Brown Sugar? Did you try in your previous recipe only using Agave instead of both brown sugar and splenda?

Carolyn, I didn't have good luck when I tried a version of this cookie with only agave (but I'm not an expert at baking, so maybe it can be done.) Because there's a whole cup of Splenda, you'd have to adjust the dry ingredients, and using agave would also make it phase 2 or 3. Let us know if you come up with a version that works with agave.

Kalyn, as a librarian, I see lots of blogs but your is the best for what I am looking for. I am a newbee but love what I see so far, the pictures, the recipes, the thought behind the messages: I feel like I have found a lost family member. So thank you so much for all the hard work you but into this.

Great tasting cookies. Couldn't take off the oil as it was so incorporated into the butter, wondering if I should have left the butter in a sieve for some time because the cookies turned out too oily :/ Thanks for sharing :)

Oh my gosh, if the finished product tastes half as good as the batter my diabetc mom and I are in for a treat. Not sure you understand what a portion is, I got eight "normal size" cookies out of these. But then again I am a tremendous eater. Also lacking almond meal I had to sub regular flour. So took some experimenting. Thank you, super yummy!!!

Found this recipe via Pinterest, and I'm so glad I did! It's perfect for me (diabetic) and a friend (celiac). Made them today for a Christmas get together, and I'm excited to share them with my friends. Thanks so much for sharing... :)

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